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The Sultan's Game. Variant on 11 by 11 board from 19th century Germany. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, May 9, 2021 12:32 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Sat May 8 10:26 PM:

Ok, I updated this page in the manner I would propose for general usage. Everything seems to be ok, except that after you move one of black's pieces, the color of the dark squares changes to a gray and stays that way.


H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, May 9, 2021 06:25 AM UTC:

OK, that looks good. Except for those with JavaScript switched off.

To cure that there should be a static image as alternative (screenshot?), in <noscript> tags. Perhaps together with a message that points out what they are missing):

<noscript>
<p>You can play against this diagram if JavaScript is on</p>
<img src="....">
</noscript>

And you can add display:none; to the style of the <div> conaining the interactive diagram; the betza.js script would make it visible when it converts the deinition to a board image, and it keeps the definition hidden when JavaScript is off.

The color change is by design. Should really happen on the first click already. This can be suppressed by using darkShade instead of startShade to set the color. Bright colors are often not ideal for playing, especially when colors were used for highlighting. But some diagrams use dark-blue squares, which even camouflage the 'black' Alfaerie pieces.


📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, May 9, 2021 04:52 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 06:25 AM:

Changing startShade to darkShade does not seem to have worked.

I added the noscript section. Good call.


H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, May 9, 2021 06:13 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 04:52 PM:

Changing startShade to darkShade does not seem to have worked.

Because it has not been changed. Check through 'Show Page Source'. The caching is screwing up things.

[Edit] OK, with ?nocache=true it does seem changed, and indeed it does not work. I will check it out.

[Edit2] OK, should work now. It was interaction between the two diagrams (the one in the Comments is on the same page), where one remembered the 'realColor' of the other. Which was not reset, because startColor and darkColor were not both defined in this diagram. I moved the initialization of realColor to an invalid value from the globals to the routine that parses the diagram definition now.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, May 10, 2021 12:21 AM UTC:

There is a typo in the German book title, it should read "seine" in place of "siene".

Also, I read the author's name as "Tressan" in accordance with Google OCR. There is a clear bridge between the two stems on the upper part of the last letter of his name. Google search finds the name on several pages where it seems to be removed from the pictures (Probably from bottom lines for the bookbinder, called Bogensignaturen in German language).

I have found the book on Google books here: https://books.google.de/books?id=n64UAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=Tressan&f=false


Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, May 10, 2021 01:00 PM UTC:

P.S. Can we complete Peguilhen to Ernest-Frédéric von Lavergne-Peguilhen (1769–1845), recipient of the last letter from Henriette Vogel and Heinrich von Kleist? Life dates and occupation are fitting, and he also went simple by Peguilhen.


📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 12:36 PM UTC in reply to Jörg Knappen from Mon May 10 01:00 PM:

Thanks, Jörg! These corrections have been incorporated.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 01:44 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 12:36 PM:

Thanks Greg. Can you update the Emperor's Game as well?


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 05:16 PM UTC:

I only notice now that these variants have weird castling rules, where the Rook doesn't end up next to the King. At the moment the diagram doesn't support that. Also for lack of a Betza notation for this. The On castling implies the castling partner ends on the opposit adjacent square.

[Edit] For now I solved this problem by allowing additional specification of the castling type through diagram parameters, rather than introducing new XBetza notation. For this I implemented a new parameter castleGap, default value 1, which corresponds to normal castling. The idea is that for castleGap > 0 the destination of the Rook will be that of the King, minus castleGap times the basic King step. For castleGap=1 the Rook would thus end up next to the King on the inside, while castleGap=2 would leave an empty square between R and K, etc. If castleGap < 1, however, the reference point  is the King's square of origin, instead of the destination. That means that castleGap=-1 gives the type of castling we want here: the Rook ends next to the square where the King started (just as the King ends next to where the Rook started, so that they move by an equal amount.)


Georgi Markov wrote on Wed, Oct 20, 2021 04:35 PM UTC:

In fact, the rook - both here and in the Emperor's game - does end up next to the king. After Tressau's (and I believe this is the correct name, not Tressan: see Oettinger’s Bibliotheca Shahiludii) rules for the Sultan's game, K moves four squares towards R which lands on the adjacent square. Check the illustrative games in Tressau's book. I have a paper in press in the Board Game Studies Journal dealing with the Emperor's game and the Sultan's game which I hope will be published in 2022; will provide a link when it is.


Bn Em wrote on Wed, Oct 20, 2021 06:06 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 04:35 PM:

When saying ‘four squares’, is that counted inclusively or exclusively? In the former case, both king and rook moving ‘four’ squares each would in fact land next to each other, on the bishops and adjutant's squares on the queenside and the marshall's and knight's on the commanderside.


Georgi Markov wrote on Wed, Oct 20, 2021 10:20 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 06:06 PM:

K to b/j, R to c/i.


Bn Em wrote on Thu, Oct 21, 2021 12:24 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from Wed Oct 20 10:20 PM:

Is that Tressau's interpretation? And do we know how much info the original sourcs gives on the matter?

After all if the latter does specify, as this article does, that both pieces move four spaces each, the Kc/i–Rd/h interpretation would make sense both in terms of preserving usual castling and lining up with the frequent use of inclusive counting (see also paragraph 4 of the Comments in Cazaux' page on Grant Acedrex)


Georgi Markov wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 01:11 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Thu Oct 21 12:24 PM:

Tressau does not explicitly mention how many spaces the rook goes, but the landing square for R in the Sultan's game is obvious enough from the provided illustrative games: see mating position in game 1 (p. 87) and move 28 in game 4 (p. 89). [On move 20, White castles "to the right"; move 28 is Ri1-f1, or 119 to 116 in the original notation; that's the first R move after castling].


Bn Em wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 03:55 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 01:11 PM:

Ok, having actually gone to find a copy online, I agree that Tressau specifies the Kb/j–Rc/i castle; in principle one could still object that the example games may not be played by the original rules (while he says they're real, rather than constructed, games, it could still be under the influence of a misunderstanding), but it seems upon a cursory reading that for the Sultan's Game in particular his book may in fact be the original source? The Emperors Game is cited in the Spielarchiv, but Tressau explicitly notes (p.80) that a game with a Marshal had been suggested there but not described, rather being rejected due to the necessary odd number of files being unwieldy (in particular due to either same‐colour bishops or transposition of one bishop but not the other with its adjacent knight).

Unfortunately a quick search for the Archiv der Spiele online appears entirely fruitless so I can't confirm that…


Georgi Markov wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 04:37 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 03:55 PM:

Tressau modified the rules for the Kaiserspiel (e.g. castling rule is different in the Archiv der Spiele description) and practically developed the rules for the Sultanspiel himself based on Peguilhen's initial - but never fully developed - idea. Later sources are ultimately based on Tressau, with errors. Thus it's Tressau's rules that should be taken as definitive, the illustrative games were played by Tressau himself and after his own rules, so there is hardly any chance for a misunderstanding. There's a discussion of all that in my paper in press, I'll provide a link when it's published.


Bn Em wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 08:32 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 04:37 PM:

Indeed, that was my impression from his book as well; I'd initially missed the detail of how recent this variant was and had assumed it significantly older (and I don't trust people to count like we do today(!)).

I enjoyed the other papers you posted here and look forward to reading this one too


Georgi Markov wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 09:40 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 08:32 PM:

Thank you very much indeed!

Meanwhile, I realized I seem to have somehow misread your "search for the Archiv der Spiele" as "search within"; I hope this link works: https://books.google.bg/books?id=If5dAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Tue, Oct 26, 2021 07:31 PM UTC:

Like Georgi Markov, I confirm that I believe that the name of the cited author is Tressau and not Tressan. Maybe the text of this page should be corrected, also because my book is cited (thanks). In this book, we used Tressau.

That being said, the gothic script which is used for the original German book is not easy to distinguish an "u" from an "n".


📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Oct 27, 2021 02:29 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Tue Oct 26 07:31 PM:

Maybe the text of this page should be corrected, also because my book is cited (thanks). In this book, we used Tressau.

Yes, sorry, this was a mistake.  I changed the name on the Emperor's Game page when I updated it but overlooked making the same change here.  I'll get it corrected.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Thu, Dec 2, 2021 06:37 PM UTC:

The rule of castling is not correct as far as the Rook is concerned. When castling, the king move four squares toward one of the rooks, and the rook jumps to the other side of the king.

This will be corrected in future editions of A World of Chess, by JL.Cazaux and R.Knowlton.

In addition, the name Tressan has to be corrected to Tressau on this page.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Dec 2, 2021 07:30 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 06:37 PM:

When castling, the king move four squares toward one of the rooks, and the rook jumps to the other side of the king.

That definitely sounds more sensible. I had to add a special parameter castlingGap to the Interactive Diagram to support the weird way of castling that is described in the text. (I see the Diagram in the article has already been changed to castle in the normal way, though, unlike the one I first published in the comments.)


Georgi Markov wrote on Sun, Dec 5, 2021 03:41 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Thu Dec 2 07:30 PM:

My comment here on Oct 20th was in reply to your previous one in fact. But I still haven't learned how to incorporate a previous message or parts of it.


📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Dec 5, 2021 06:20 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 03:41 PM:

But I still haven't learned how to incorporate a previous message or parts of it.

Hi Georgi,

The easiest way, (and the way I use), is to switch the format from Markdown to WYSIWYG.  Then click the quotation marks from the toolbar to enter blockquote mode.  Then copy the text you want to quote from the section above the edit form and paste it in.  Hitting the enter key twice will exit blockquote mode so you can start typing your response.


Georgi Markov wrote on Sun, Dec 5, 2021 06:48 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 06:20 PM:

Hi Georgi,

The easiest way, (and the way I use), is to switch the format from Markdown to WYSIWYG.  Then click the quotation marks from the toolbar to enter blockquote mode.  Then copy the text you want to quote from the section above the edit form and paste it in.  Hitting the enter key twice will exit blockquote mode so you can start typing your response.

Thanks a lot Greg! 


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